Insurance Agency Facebook Strategy – It’s Now Mandatory

Whether you want to admit it or not, facebook has exploded as a key marketing tool for anyone who wants to have strong brand recognition. With over 70% of all insurance agencies using social media it’s gotten much more competitive and harder to generate results. Hopefully by this point you realize that with facebook you can grow a large distribution of “Fans”. When marketing or “posting”, those fans become your guaranteed distribution or virtual reach. With a solid posting strategy you have the ability to actually increase your distribution by touching your fans friends through interaction occurring. At the end of the day this won’t lead to instant online sales while you sleep. However it will lead to “planting the seeds” of your agency in people’s minds. As we know with insurance, it’s not till something happens in our life that we need it. When that life event occurs in your follower you have a much more likely chance that seed will sprout into a referral phone call from a friend of a fan!


So what does your insurance agency really need to do to be successful with facebook? In my opinion you need the three “P’s”. (P)age purpose, (P)romotion, (P)osting Strategy. If you can implement all three on a consistent basis you will be above and beyond most insurance agencies. The problem is most agencies have fallen into a bad trap with social media. They have heard so many times that they need it, that they rushed to create a presence. There was never any thought process on its purpose and game plan. Now these agencies are left with a lot of wasted time and having a social media presence just to have one. What good is that?

Your Page Purpose –

The first key to success is defining what your facebook agency page actually offers people. What does it actually provide its fans consistently? If you want to seriously increase your “Fans” and distribution you can’t just tell people “Like my page, become a fan”. Let’s say you have lunch with your top client and you say, “Hey Bob, we now have a facebook insurance agency page, we would love if you went home and clicked “like” and became a fan.” Well what would you say to Bob if he said “Why?, what does it offer me?”. My point is, almost everyone has a facebook page now for their insurance agency. The ones that are going to rise to the top have an actual purpose for the page, it offers something for free. That purpose maybe promoting one of your clients businesses each week or offering a silly golf joke every Friday but it’s still more then you may have now! Once you define your page purpose it will make getting fans and posting much easier.

Promotion –

Once you have a page purpose, it makes it much easier to promote the page and get fans. Instead of telling everyone to “Like” your page, you can say, “123 Insurance is proud to announce our new free value added service. Visit facebook.com/123Insurance and become a fan today to receive weekly silly golf jokes and special advertising discounts from our clients, which is only available to our fans! Just visit the page and click the “LIKE” button at the top middle of the screen.”

Promoting should be done consistently through many traditional and nontraditional means. Featuring it in your client newsletter, website, email signature, send it to your facebook friends, LinkedIn connections and any other means that people are likely to pay attention to.

Posting Strategy

Now that your page purpose is in place, you have a road map of what you have to post. If you have promised your fans silly golf tips every Friday, then you must come through and post them. Of course you still want to offer a balance of three kinds of posts. (1) Projecting yourself as experts in the products you sell. (2) Agency promotion – Making sure people know the products you offer. (3) Interactive Posts – Posting things that people will “Like” and “Comment on” giving you the ability to increase your distribution.

Facebook is a very powerful tool for anyone looking to influence potential consumers. The problem is its getting more and more complicated to get results. To get to the next level you need to have a game plan that you can consistently execute and modify. If you don’t have that plan then you’re just hoping for results and in business none of ever want to truly rely on guessing!

Creating A Social Media System (For Insurance)

On average I talk with a few hundred insurance agents each month. Almost every agent has now accepted the fact that facebook must now become part of their daily marketing plan. Commissions are going down, competition is growing and agents know they need to touch more potential clients. Facebook’s viral marketing capabilities are the most efficient and cost effective solutions. The problem is to make facebook part of your daily model you need to have a plan or a “System” so it doesn’t take up to much of your time.

There are four keys to a successful facebook system, Aesthetics, Daily Distribution Growth, Posting Scheduling, and Posting Strategy. If all of these things are done properly and daily you shouldn’t be spending more than ten to fifteen minutes a day on the facebook aspect of your insurance agency.

Aesthetics – The facebook business fan page allows users to customize the look and feel of the page. Like
any website it’s important to keep things fresh. Every agency should been using the “Reviews” application, where clients can leave testimonials. This will allow you to gain “Virtual Credibility” to potential viral traffic. More importantly you should be taking advantage of the new “Static HTML” applications. These allow you to create content that can direct people to become fans as well as allow users to actually quote and buy your insurance products from your facebook page. (Note: I now offer these Apps, if interested email Ken@snoozzy.com)

Aesthetics Tip: Spend five minutes each week reviewing your competitor’s facebook business pages. See what new customization and technology they are using. Remember having a page is one thing, having the tools that can turn traffic into sales and leads is another….. always be on the lookout!

Daily Distribution Growth (Adding Fans) – The most important part of social media is having distribution. Without it you’re just typing to yourself. I find that adding fans is what truly separates the impulsive novices from the innovative experts. Honestly there is no magic formula for adding fans it takes time and some effort. Your goal should be 50% of your current clients as well as 20% of your potential clients as fans.

Daily Distribution Growth Tip: Every time you meet or talk to a client, take their email address and type it into the facebook search box. If they have a facebook profile, request to be their friend. It’s the modern day handshake and because you just talked to them, they will accept the request quickly. Once the friend request is accepted send them a facebook message, direct them to your fanpage and tell them why and how they should become a fan of your page. If this is done consistently then it shouldn’t take more then two minutes a day to grow your friends and fans!

Posting – Scheduling / Strategy: I find that insurance agencies struggle with posting strategy the most. This is because most don’t have one, they impulsively post, which is the worst thing you can do on facebook if its business related. Keep in mind three things, your post has the ability to keep your current clients satisfied with your services plus alert potential clients of them, your post can be interacted with and generate viral traffic to your page and your post will be indexed via the search engines and could generate SEO to your page. My point is, posting is important! You should have a preset posting schedule as well as a plan on what you’re posting about. You should spend no more then two minutes a day preparing and submitting your post.

Posting Schedule Tip: The best times to post are when people are playing around on facebook at work. Keep in mind that when you post it goes to someone’s news feed. If they don’t come on to facebook for a few hours after you post, your post could be buried and not read. Best times to post are right before lunch and right after lunch (11:30am or 1:30pm) or right before people are about to head home (4:30pm). If you’re going to post on the weekend, do it early around (8:00am).

Posting Strategy Tip: The best posting strategy is a balanced one. First determine who your current fans are and think of posting topics that they are going to “Comment and Like”. If your fans are local, then talk about local events etc. I suggest having a three pronged posting strategy. One - post 33% of the time about what you’re an expert in. Two- post 33% of the time about things that will generate interaction. Three- post 33% of the time about things people fear that are relevant to your agency then offer a solution to their fears.

Using Social Media is a lot like working out, everyone try’s it but in the end most people burn out or give up. The reason being it’s a marathon with very little short term return. You have to commit yourself and do the little things each day to stay ahead of the curve and in the race…… Make no mistake the race has begun, will you finish?

Having a Synchronized Virtual Game Plan

Before you start to read this article on social media look into the mirror and ask yourself these three questions. (1) Am I satisfied with the results our insurance agency website has supplied over the years? (2) Did we ever have a game plan to generate consistent traffic to the website? (3) Did we just have a website to have a website?


Five to ten years ago if your insurance agency had a website, it likely had no purpose other than being a virtual billboard. However, it presented your agency as successful to the consumer. Now at least ninety percent of all insurance agencies have websites. This means the crème is rising and the agencies who “have a site to have a site” are starting to sense things aren’t going the way they anticipated - At least from the perspective of using the website to generate new business.

Fast forward to 2011, social media has exploded and all you are hearing as an agency owner is “You need to be using social media to get new clients.” So you either hired someone to create your presence or you have done it yourself. You were excited for the first few weeks because you thought you understood how it worked. However, now you look back and think you wasted a lot of time with absolutely no results. In my opinion, all you’ve done is repeat the same mistake you made with your website. You now have a social media presence “to have a social media presence.” It has absolutely no purpose, no strategy and it was never made part of your daily model.

The reason your website has been a failure is because you never figured out how to consistently generate consumer traffic to it on a daily basis. You may have even spent a lot of money on SEO experts to help. This is where social media comes into play. Through a good posting strategy, it can allow you to generate that daily consistent traffic that you always craved, even if you’re just an average Joe with minimal computer skills. Hopefully at this point you understand you need to connect with people on social media, then post information that make them “interact” so your posts go out to their connections, increasing your potential traffic. If you can do this every day then you will generate the traffic you crave. The next question is how to get that traffic from social media to your website?

Getting traffic to your website

The real answer to your struggle is to have a corporate website that is designed to be synchronized to your social media presence. Think of the website as being the core foundation and the social media presence being the hands that pull the people in. We know everyone is on social media on a consistent basis. The question is how do we bring the people from social media to our websites? The answer is to literally put the website on the social media pages. In short, bring the website to where the traffic is!

Here is an example of an insurance agency currently doing this, go to www.ekandek.com you will see a website that is client friendly, traditional and promotes their social media presence. Now click on the “Shop For Insurance”, look it over and remember it. Now, go to their facebook insurance agency page, www.facebook.com/ekandek, on the left side click “Shop for Insurance”. What you will see is their website, built right into the facebook page. Ek and Ek doesn’t have to worry about getting people to their website, they just have to get people to their facebook page, which is much easier to do a on a consistent basis. The consumer doesn’t want to leave social media, this agency recognizes this and solves the problem by allowing the consumer to review or share their products without ever leaving the social media experience!

To be honest, this is a technology, service and innovative strategy that I offer at www.benefitstore.net ; however I am not trying to sell you on it. I am trying to wake you up to the fact that this is what other insurance agencies are doing. They have a virtual game plan in place to get their brand out to people and get the phone to ring again. It’s very likely that all of your frustration is based on not being pro-active virtually, not having any type of game plan and basically going to bed at night and hoping people will come to you.

I said it at the beginning of this post; almost all agencies have websites and most have social media presences. As we move forward in the future you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the internet will play an even larger role in the insurance industry. It’s time to review what the top agencies are doing and at least create a hybrid model for your agency if you want to keep pace and not fall to far behind.

New Facebook Changes

(1) Newsfeed Changes

Gone are two different feeds (Most Recent / Most Popular)

Replacing it is a single News Feed which shows you both with Top News shown at the top, and Most Recent underneath. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away. They’re marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you’ll see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you’re scrolling through.

Ken Tip: The use of photos in your posts has now become even more important to drawing exposure to your posts!

(2) Profile Button Removed!

The old right-hand corner trifecta “Home,” “Profile” and “Account” have parted ways. Instead of Profile, you now have a small thumbnail and name of the user you’re logged in as – that should make things clearer when you are using Facebook as a Page. Also, the “Account” has been replaced by a simple down arrow so you can access all your account, privacy and logout settings.

(3) News Ticker Added in Upper Right Corner

The ticker is a live-feed area that sticks to the upper right corner of the screen and gives you a running play-by-play of what is happening literally right now. Facebook has been playing around with the Ticker in various forms for a while now on a small scale, but now it is rolling out to everyone. Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place.

(4) The Subscribe Button

The Subscribe button allows you to set just how much you want to hear from a person. In fact Facebook will now allow you to subscribe to someone even if you’re not friends (or let others subscribe to you). The latter only works with posts set to public. You’re already getting your friends’ posts in News Feed. With the Subscribed button, you can choose how much you see from them:

Ken Tip: This feature can be great for consultants, but for companies and brands you want to keep using the business fanpage as it can be customized!

(5) Minor Changes

You no longer need 25 likes on a business page in order to grab a custom URL

Facebook will try to not choke your inbox by emailing you a daily summary of the “less important” notifications instead of individual ones. If it makes you feel more alive to have a full inbox, you can change it back to individual emails on the notifications page.

Posts or comments in another language prompt the appearance of a “translate” button.

Posts that have been shared will now include a link you can follow to see who has shared them

LinkedIn For Insurance Agents - What To Do

Over the last few years I have found many insurance agents being attracted to using LinkedIn. Reason being they liked the idea of LinkedIn being the “professional” social network. Where many felt facebook was not as business oriented. So they went to LinkedIn and created a free profile, connecting with whomever they could find.


For most agents that’s where it stops, creating a profile and accepting a few connection requests. When talking about LinkedIn with them I always hear the battle cry of “What am I supposed to do now?, nothing is happening!”

The true power of tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is one very simple concept. It’s that people are very focused on them and likely to pay attention to communications occurring through them. So with LinkedIn, if you want to take it to the next level then you have to utilize their communication tools. For most of you, you probably didn’t even know they existed.

What Does Ken Do
I go into LinkedIn, and upload in my entire “potential client email list”. Then LinkedIn manually allows you to choose to connect with whomever you feel has potential from your list. Once you send the connection requests out, over the next few days you will see a steady stream of people accepting them. Now these aren’t people I know, but that’s ok because my goal is to connect with potential clients, add them to my distribution list and then target them with targeted LinkedIn messages. You have to realize that 80% of people using social media have no idea how it works or what they are doing. So they are very likely to accept your connection requests. Advanced users realize this and use it to their advantage.

Once your connections start to grow, the next step is to organize them into “sub folders” it’s called “tagging”. When you connect with someone they go into the “Untagged” folder. First you need to create a few sub folders by clicking on “manage tags” in the Connection area. Then you need to go in and move that connection into a folder that describes them. Let’s say you connect with Bob and he is a business owner that you could target for Employee Benefits. Well then you should create a sub folder for Business Owners. When you come up with a targeted message that business owners would be interested in you can go into that folder, select it and send all the business owners that message. Now I know that may sound a lot like email, and a lot more work to send. However you have to realize when you send a LinkedIn message that it goes to the users LinkedIn inbox and it goes to their traditional email. However in their traditional email it will say they have received a message from their LinkedIn connection. This will look much different then the 100 other emails they may get that day, giving it a high probability of being opened and read!

Make sure that when you create a folder that you don’t put more then fifty connections in that folder. The reason is, LinkedIn only allows you to send a message to fifty people at once. So if you have over fifty connections of the same category you should create a second folder for that category.

This may seem like a lot of work initially, reason being you never actually put any work into LinkedIn. However once you have a very organized connection list you shouldn’t be wasting more then a few minutes a day with LinkedIn.

Once everything is organized you should get into a system of sending every new connection a LinkedIn message about your Facebook Business page and your Twitter account. Attempting to get them to become part of those distributions. Then “tagging” that connection into an organized folder.

Again, the power of LinkedIn is its new and people pay attention to it. Marketing 101 always tell us that you want to use communication tools that your potential clients are likely to pay attention to. The key with LinkedIn is to not be scared to connect with potential clients, and then put in the time to organize your distribution so you can take advantage of it.

What Is Valueable Posting Information

I talk to around 500 insurance agencies a month. When it comes to understanding how to generate interaction on facebook and Linkedin…. most are clueless.

Social Media interaction is defined as you or your agency posting something and then one of your friends or fans clicking that they “LIKE” it, commenting on it or sharing it with their friends. Interaction causes your post to then to go to that interactors friends list. Allowing you to increase your messages distribution. If everyone understood how this worked it would clearly be their # 1 goal, at all times when determining posting content.

Social Media, especially facebook is a very unique communication center. Gossip is king and facts are ignored. This leaves many insurance agents frustrated and clueless on how to market their brand and what to post.

Middle School Lunch Table Analogy- Think of communicating on facebook like talking at the middle school lunch table. If the nerdy kid next to you said “The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth”. Would you care? Or even continue the discussion? However if he said “I heard the Sun is going to suck in the Earth next week.” You would likely interact and respond.

My point is, just posting random insurance facts and articles is not going to generate interaction. Value on facebook comes from stories, opinions, advice, and reviews of things. So keep that in mind when it comes to your posting strategy!

Understanding Social Media For Your Insurance Agency

When it comes to using social media to market and grow your insurance agency, there always seems to be a few things insurance agencies struggle with. During the last 18 months I have talked to over 5,000 agents about what social media really is, how it can help and where it’s going. The three big things agencies seem to struggle with are (1) How does it all really work? (2) How do I make it part of my daily model without wasting time? (3) How is social media any different than my current website, that by the way I never get any results from?


My goal below is to offer some big picture ideas and strategies to help you and your insurance agency keep pace.

How does social media really work for an insurance agency?
The first thing you have to accept and understand is social media is not advanced alien technology. Whether it’s facebook, Linkedin, Twitter or now Google Plus social media is just a communication tool that a high percentage of people are currently paying attention too. Regardless, as a salesman you always want to be in a large crowd of people projecting yourself to be a solution to a “situation”. Thirty years ago you likely cold called every day, I am sure you didn’t enjoy it but you did it because people took phone calls seriously and paid attention to your “pitch”. In 2011 social media is no different, you still may not like doing it, but the point is it gives you the highest percentage of your “pitch” being understood. This allows you to connect with potential clients or getting referred to someone in a “situation” that you’re good at solving. Basically the same goals you’ve always had, just accomplished with different a communicational method.

If you’re new to social media I suggest starting with a facebook business fanpage. You can create one for free and then market it out to all current clients, potential clients and friends. Gaining as many “fans” as possible, “fans” are who your messages go to when you post. However if one of those fans interacts with your post by “liking it” or “commenting” your post will then go to all of their friends. Basically we are replacing your weekly newsletter with a more interactive daily communication tool for your agency. Allowing you to project your agencies character on a more consistent basis.

How do I make it part of my daily model?
There are four keys to a successful social media system: Posting Aesthetics, Daily Distribution Growth, Posting Scheduling and Posting Strategy. If all of these things are done properly and on a daily basis, you shouldn’t need to spend more than 10 to 15 minutes a day on the social media aspect of your insurance agency.

During the day your ten minutes of social media time should either be spent inviting people to be distribution to your pages or posting something that is either projecting your agency to be an expert in your field or trying to create interaction to generate more distribution to your brand. Remember when you post that you want to post at the right times of the day, when people are likely surfing the net and viewing your posts.

How to make social media different than your website
I think the biggest thing with having a social media presence is having a real purpose for it, a “niche”. If you were to go out to lunch with one of your top clients and you told him to become a fan of your facebook agency page. What would your answer be if he asked you why? Most agencies can’t answer that question they say they have a social media presence just to have one. To me, this sounds like the exact answer they would give if asked why they had a website. Remember social media is a communication tool, your message goes out to people. Unlike a website where you’re trying to get people to come to it.

Fact is millions of brands have their own social media presence now, if you’re going to be successful you have to truly offer your clients and your distributions something unique consistently. The hard part of about that is it’s different for everyone. I always like to say your social media niche should be focused around what you’re truly passionate about. If you’re an expert on insurance for municipalities then focus on that, if you’re a great cook then talk cooking. My point is if you can consistently project your passion on a daily basis, your fan base will realize that, connect with you and truly see value in your brand. That’s regardless if its insurance related or not. This is an important point that so many people fail to realize. Social media is a gossip center; you’ve got to offer something that people want to tell other people about. Once you can do that consistently your brand will reach more people then it every did before, for free, in a matter of seconds!

Special Service Review Webinars

We are now helping over 1,000 insurance agencies touch more potential clients. We know what we are doing and we know we can help your insurance agency.

This week we are having two special free demo webinars, where we will review all of our services.

Services Include
Option 1 - Social Media Training
Option 2 - Online Insurance Store Application
Option 3 - Brand New Web Presence
Option 4 - Social Media Management
Demonstration Times (ALL EST)

Wed 8/3 @ 4pm (click below to register)
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/985508072

Thur 8/4 @ 1pm (click below to register)
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/706584488

If you cannot attend either demo but are interested in our services please contact Ken French Jr to setup a private demonstration!


Kenneth J. French
President @ CEO
Ken@snoozzy.com
973-607-1916 Ext 1

Facebook July Upgrades

o Create a Group Chat Instantly


Facebook will be launching multi-person chat, which is one of their most requested features. Now when your friends can't figure out what movie to see, you can just add them to a chat and decide together. To include more friends in your conversation, simply select Add Friends to Chat.
o Bring Your Conversations to Life

Video chat has been around for years now, but it's still not an everyday activity for most people. Sometimes it's too difficult to set up, or the friends you want to talk to are on different services.

So a few months ago, facebook started working with Skype to bring video calling to facebook. They built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place. To call your friend, just click the video call button at the top of your chat window.

Video calling will be available to everyone over the next few weeks.

Using Facebook To Generate Insurance Leads

I hear the same old story every day from all of the insurance agencies I talk to, “The phone doesn’t ring like it used to, we barely get any walk-ins and we try to buy leads, but….. there not very good. “

With commissions going down constantly, how are you going to increase your insurance sales volume without spending significant money?

The answer is the facebook business fanpage! If you know what you’re doing, you can actually generate your own traffic to your Facebook Insurance Agency fanpage. The key is to setup your page with the right customization applications, so you can harness that traffic and turn it into leads and referrals. The reason I am confident in this, is I do it every day for my business.

Anyone who uses the internet to market their brand and to generate insurance leads craves consistent website traffic. The problem is its becoming harder and harder to consistently generate traffic to your website for the average insurance agency. There are more websites and professional lead generation companies than ever before. Plus, people use the internet differently than they used to.

Step 1 - Understanding The Difference Between The Facebook Personal & Facebook Business Fanpage

There always seems to be confusion on the difference between the facebook personal page and the facebook business fanpage template. In short, the biggest difference is the ability to customize.

Facebook Personal Page – Allows you to request to be friends with anyone who has a facebook account. If the other user accepts your request they then become part of your guaranteed distribution list. This means when you post something on your wall it’s guaranteed to go to all of your friends news feeds. Think of adding friends as adding email addresses to your drip marketing system. The variable is if one of those friends “interacts” with what you posted, meaning they “LIKE” it or leave a comment, your post actually goes out to their entire friend list as well. This means you gain distribution and potentially could draw more traffic to your post or your actual personal profile. The bad news is your personal profile lacks any type of conversion tools that will turn that traffic into an insurance lead or referral, at least consistently.

The Facebook Business Fanpage – In some ways is very similar to the personal page, however instead of friends who are your posting distribution, you have fans. Anyone can go to your fanpage and click on the “LIKE” button at the top center of the page to become a fan. Similar to friends, fans equal guaranteed posting distribution. The biggest difference from the personal page is the ability to customize your page. Users can add applications that facebook offers as well as applications they create themselves. You need to add customization to your page to control and convert the traffic that you generate.

Step 2 - Generating Consistent Traffic

All good fanpages are designed to generate results from the traffic they generate via posting. The key with posting is to consistently get your fans to comment or click the “LIKE” button below the post. Again this will send your post out to all their friends, increasing your distribution and potential traffic to your fanpage. Example, let’s say you have 500 fans, and each day when you post, that post gets 3 to 4 interactions. Your distribution could be around 2 or 3 thousand potential visitors each day. The key is to have a posting strategy that gets your fan base to interact. Note: Sometimes talking about insurance all the time is not the best idea.

Step 3 - Creating Credibility (Reviews Application)

The first customization tool you need to utilize is the free “Reviews App” on facebook. This will allow anyone who is a fan of your page to leave a written testimonial about your agency. When traffic comes to your page, that will likely be the first thing they view. Everyone wants to know what other people think of a service. If you have good reviews, that traffic will then move to the next step, seeing if what you sell is something they need.

Step 4 – Converting Traffic into Leads (Shop For Insurance Application)

Once you have checked out as a credible company to do business with, you need to have some tools on the fan page that lets people quote and enroll in your insurance products. Most insurance companies now offer agents their own enrollment links for their products. Plus there are many third party companies that offer quoting comparison tools that can also be very useful. Benefitstore.net offers an I-Frame application called (Shop For Insurance) that can put all of these tools internally on your facebook fanpage. Allowing traffic to actually quote and enroll in your products right from facebook. Or use the “Share” option to send it to someone else on facebook they know who needs that product.

View a Current Broker Using "Shop For Insurance"
www.facebook.com/rumerinsurance
(Click Shop For Insurance) on his facebook page

Everything I spoke of, I do personally at www.Facebook.com/Benefitstore.net. I will be honest it’s not easy and it takes a lot of trial and error sometimes. However if you can be creative and can consistently get interaction with your posts, then you will generate traffic and eventually leads. Assuming you have a fan page with the right conversion tools to harness that traffic.

Yes You Have To Be Creative!

I constantly get asked by insurance professionals how they can be successful using LinkedIn and Facebook for their insurance agencies. I tell everyone the same thing, there is no magic answer, no written playbook for success. It’s about being creative and making a lot of mistakes.

Anyone who understands the principals of Marketing realizes that trial and error always come into play. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with trying and failing…. Just don’t fail twice doing the same thing.

With Social Media everyone has a different list of connections so everyone will have a different strategy on how to turn that distribution into conversions. You just have to be creative; you actually have to perform some “Marketing,” something most insurance agencies have never done before.

Social Media is a marathon; it’s a true test of how consistent you can be…… Don’t give up; keep trying until you find what works!

Keep An Eye On Your Competitors!

Social Media is a great medium to keep an eye on your competitors and stay ahead of the game. It is a great way to research whether your competitors are offering special promotions, how active they are on social media, who is following them and what they are saying. Always remember to stay on top of what your competition is doing by reading everything that they post. Remember that you and other businesses are always fighting to stay on top.

Facebook = Viral Marketing

Facebook = Viral Marketing

If I have 450 friends on Facebook and comment on your recent Facebook Fan Page update, then my comment is now streamed out to all 450 of my friends.

These are 450 people they you don’t even know, who may have never heard of you before, and who are now possibly clicking your link and checking you out.

Please tell me how an email marketing campaign achieves anything close?

And just the simple act of someone “Like’ing” your Facebook Fan Page is broadcast out to all of that person’s friends.

When someone subscribes to your email list, who knows about it other than you?

And from the standpoint of authority, on Facebook if one of my friends comments or likes something, it peaks my interest just a tad bit more simply because it’s one of my friends that did it – it’s not some unknown person who means nothing to me.

I hope you see my point and get the vision of the exposure your business can accomplish through Facebook.

Top 5 Posting Topics

As we all know by now the key to using facebook is to get Comments and Likes for your comments. It then allows your posts to go to the interactions friends. Plus it helps build your Page Rank with Google. Below are the top 5 posting topics for interaction. You’ll notice none have to do with Insurance!


Top 5 Topics to Get Interaction on Facebook

# 5 – Local or National Events
#4 – Sports Teams or postgame results
#3- Congratulating an employee (birthday / employment milestone)
#2- Talking about Food
#1 – Pets (People love animals!)

Facebook Bobsled App - Could it change the world?

T-Mobile has teamed with developer Vivox to create a web-based voice chat app that runs in Facebook.
The app is called Bobsled and lets you start voice chats with your Facebook friends from within Facebook's chat window.

We think there's huge potential here if it catches on, and could start eating into Skype's territory once Bobsled allows video chat and calls to landlines and mobile numbers. In fact, the service works a lot like Skype now, but instead on relying on people to sign up for the service, all your Facebook friends are right there, ready to chat. To use Bobsled, add the app on Facebook from the developer's page here. You'll be asked to install a small plugin and restart your browser. When you log back in to Facebook, you'll have the ability to start a voice chat with any of your friends by clicking the green phone icon next to their name.
That's it. With one click, you're ready to start chatting. You can also record voice messages that are sent to your friend's message inbox. Click the "Send Voice Message" link at the bottom of your buddy list to record one. It's a nice feature for people who use Facebook a lot to send instant messages.

Under Attack & You Don't Even Know It!

True Story

I was talking to the owner of a full service insurance agency in Ohio. His grandfather started the company in 1935, then his father ran it for 30 years and now it’s his turn. In short he said they insure about 85% of all the local businesses etc. They do zero marketing and grow based on name recognition alone.

He gives me a call because he had seen what we were doing for insurance agencies on facebook. This leads him to explain that he just lost one of his top 3 clients. A massive local factory that he had various commercial policies in place with. The factory was also a three generational ownership and the initial owner and this guy’s grandfather were golf buddies etc.

To make a long story short, he lost the account to a broker in Florida that ended up being the current owner’s college roommate’s friend, who he met via facebook.

I think the point of this story is your competition could come from anywhere now! Even your oldest clients could be at risk. At the end of the day you should really ask yourself how well you’ve truly connected with your clients because there are people out there trying to make the connection!

The insurance industry is changing; I hope you’re ready to work a little harder!

LinkedIn - Customizing How Your Website Appears

Selling On Facebook

It’s never the best idea to solicit on facebook. However if you have the right strategy and post structure it can lead to traffic and sales.


Here are the top 5 products to market on facebook!

Identity Theft Insurance
Wedding Insurance
Pet Insurance
Travel Insurance
On-Line Defensive Driving Classes (Save on Auto Insurance)

Is It Time To Sell Your Insurance Agency

Top 5 Reasons To Consider Selling

5. You still have more filing cabinets then computers

4. You have an actual fax machine that prints out faxes

3. Your still cold calling and walking around town doing stop ins

2. You don’t have time to use Social Media

1. You don’t need to do any marketing because you get more business then you can handle from referrals alone!

There is major reform happing in the insurance industry and it’s not just with Health Insurance. The role of the insurance salesman and his agency are changing quickly. Unfortunately change always causes casualties…… will your agency survive?

Commissions are getting cut….. On-line sales are now occurring…… It’s all about who can do the most volume!

LinkedIn Basic Tips

1. Use Your Profile as a Destination In an informal check of LinkedIn search strength, I did a Google search of 20 contacts. In every case, regardless of how visible they are on the web, LinkedIn profiles appeared on the first page with the vast majority appearing in the first five results. Keep your profile current to highlight your experience and Insurance expertise but anyone online given the strength of search results.

2. Linking Content via Applications As the site has evolved in the past few years it now offers a number of opportunities to share content from the site directly. Your LinkedIn network should be a strong source of support for your news and updates as your contacts are likely connected to your industry. By utilizing the available tools to link to your blog, twitter feed, or to create polls you can share helpful information with this network that may be passed along further to create new connection opportunities for you or your business.

3. Connect with New Contacts in Groups and Answers LinkedIn Groups are a great way to identify other users with similar interests and needs. In addition to the inherent benefits of learning from others, Groups offer a number of benefits for each user. You are able to view other members contact information and participation in a group or the LinkedIn Answers section allows you to highlight your ideas and insight. By providing useful information to others you will improve your own reputation as an expert resource on select topics. The creation of Open Groups is of benefit in a broader sense as well since discussions can be viewed by anyone on the web and picked up by search engines.

4. Research Potential Most LinkedIn users are familiar and comfortable with the people search capabilities of the site to find potential connections. Don’t forget to utilize other search tools on the site though as there is extensive data available to you. A very simple search of “public relations” provided over 11,000 listings nationally and indicates where I have a direct or indirect connection to that company. Using the search tools available it’s easy to track current openings, identify key leaders at the organizations, and recent additions or departures. Are these helpful for job seekers? Absolutely, but this information is of tremendous value for a new business discussion or a sales inquiry as well. Perhaps you have a contact from a prior project now on the inside.

5. Recommendations As either an employee or a business, a recommendation can carry a great deal of weight in the eyes of future customers. By essentially collecting success stories in advance you have the ability to create a testimonial page on a highly-trafficked, well-established site that can lead to future opportunities based on your work appearing in searches for specific keywords by others. These provide concrete examples of a (hopefully) good experience with you in a personal manner. It’s word of mouth promotion in a neighborhood of 90 million professionals. Not a bad target audience for most and one that shouldn’t be missed.

Magic Formula That Gets You Web Traffic

Again as I’ve mentioned before…. all I do is talk to hundreds of insurance professionals a month about websites, technology and social media. I am amazed at how many think there is some kind of secret thing out there that will get them website traffic without them doing or paying a thing.

Honestly if you’re not actually creating your website yourself from scratch you don’t stand a chance. That is…unless you want to invest literally hundreds of thousands a year into your site.

My advice to the common insurance broker is this. You likely have a very nice site. I am sure it’s optimized fairly well. However it’s not going to beat out the likes of the top players in the lead generation game. So go out there and market the site to your social media distribution. If you do it right you’ll get viral distribution and more leads then you need! I guarantee you one thing…. Doing nothing will likely lead to nothing!

New Facebook Analytics Features

"Like" Button Analytics

For the first time, Facebook will provide data on the behavior the "Like" button triggers, including views, clicks and visits. Businesses will be able to use this data to test the impact of placement on "Like" button click-through rate.

Businesses that use any of the Facebook Social Pugins (Example: Recommendation Plugin located in the right sidebar of this blog) will be able to see performance metrics such as "Like" button impressions, rate of comments and a breakdown of interaction by demographic information. Additionally, the demographic details available to businesses will include age group, gender, language or location.

As part of this update, businesses that are using Facebook Insights for websites will get distribution and engagement metrics related to their content's performance on Facebook in real-time. This new data will enable businesses to optimize content and adjust its placement based on performance.

Many marketers will be excited to know that the Facebook Insights update will also include more content-related metrics. For example, businesses will be able to look at impressions, referral clicks and the most popular stories on the site.

Computer Illiterate

I was talking to a gentleman who was the CEO of a very large insurance agency yesterday. The agency had over 50 employees and supposedly 10,000 clients. He was very proud to tell me that he basically never touched a computer. In his opinion it was beneath him and he had staff members to do it for him. He had an MBA in finance from Cornell blah blah blah………


My translation is, this guy was completely computer illiterate. He had built up these protecting walls around him to hide his massive weaknesses. Honestly with all of the internet marketing going on out there would you hire this guy to run your firm? He basically had no idea what pay per click advertising was and seethed when social media was mentioned.

My point is, things are changing fast. Back in the day this guy was probably a genius. However now he is basically in the minority, computer illiterate and becoming less valuable by the second. Don’t be like him, keep pushing yourself to evolve with the rapidly changing technology.

LinkedIn - Utilizing Your Connections

I would guess that 8 out 10 LinkedIn users basically add connections of clients, industry partners and other networking connections and never realize ways to efficiently utilize these connections.

What I suggest doing is use the “TAGS” feature and create organized sub lists of each type of connection type you have. These lists could be Clients, Potential Clients, Friends, Etc. You then need to go through all of your connections and put them in the correct TAG folder.

How To Get Started
Go to Connections
Click “Manage Tags” and create your folder names
Now go through your connections and select all of your “Clients”
Once all are selected click on the “Edit Tag” Link and select “Clients”
This will put all those connections in one Client folder.
Once this is complete you can then easily create a customized LinkedIn message targeted to that group.. Giving you the ability to utilize the LinkedIn Messaging feature very efficiently and quickly.

Facebook Fan Page Tips Part II

Treat Facebook like a new channel - This may be obvious at first glance, try to think differently about how to effectively use your Facebook page in conjunction with your other business activities to achieve your goals.


Interact directly and candidly with your fans - So many company Facebook pages are just PR vehicles with sanitized messages. The standard corporate speak doesn’t fly on Facebook — it does nothing to build trust or interactivity with your audience. Boring corporate speak may even cause potential fans to skip “liking” your page. Be real and respectful — your fans will appreciate it. You may want to identify the person who interacts with fans and let them get to know him or her.

Build your fan base - Remember when building your e-mail list was the most valuable way to reach potential customers? For e-mail, many tactics are employed to get the users to opt-in, but with Facebook, a simple click of the “Like” button is enough to create that connection with your customers. There are so many ways to build your fan base, but simply asking people to “Like” your page is the most successful. Be careful to not use misleading tricks to gain fans, the social media universe will rise up against you.

Offer preference to fans who “like” you - Offer unique content, special incentives or even trivia question to your fans! Whatever it is, be clear about what fans receive so that you don’t have lots of likes and then subsequent unlikes. This is also an opportunity for cross-over integration between Facebook and your other channels: website, e-mail, twitter, etc.

Create Facebook-only offers - If you offer free or trial products or have users that are contemplating your product or service, Facebook-only deals are a great way to monetize those people, who are likely not part of your e-mail list or regular viewers of your website. Use special occasion offers, but be sure to change them up.

Create a Facebook store - Make it easy for your customers, who are feeling more and more comfortable on Facebook, to buy without leaving the Facebook ecosystem..

LinkedIn Connection Strategy

There are two very different strategies to connecting on Linkedin: “Open Networking” and “Trusted Partner Networking”.

On Linkedin, one strategy for getting value is to be an “Open Networker” or LION (LinkedIn Open Networker). Open Networkers focus on growing the size of their network by initiating and accepting connection requests from as many people as possible. Open Networkers typically have many thousands of connections. This means that when they search for useful relationships (potential clients or business partners), for example looking for contacts in specific companies, or geographies or with specific interests or job titles – they are much more likely to find them (exponentially more likely because of the way Linkedin connections work).

The downside of this strategy is that with thousands of connections you don’t know each one very well, if at all. You’re essentially using Linkedin as a giant Rolodex or telephone directory rather than as a way of making deeper connections. That’s neither good nor bad – it just means that if you find someone you want to connect with through one of these “shallow” connections, you’re unlikely to get a strong referral to them.

The other strategy is to have fewer but deeper connections – a “Trusted Partner” strategy. Here you only connect to people you already know and trust. Most likely from face-to-face interaction, but possibly from online interaction too.

With this strategy you have less chance of finding someone via a search because you have less connections. But if you do find someone, it will be through someone who knows and trusts you – and they will be able to give a strong referral to you and put you in touch with the person you’re interested in connecting with.

In my experience, this Trusted Partner strategy works best for most professionals. It mirrors the way we develop trusted relationships in the real world. And it reduces the risk that your trusted connections will be spammed from other connections you barely know.

Both strategies can work, but you must be consistent. If you’re following a Trusted Partner strategy, you must only connect to people you really know & trust and turn down connections from people you don’t (Open Networkers for example).

New Facebook Fanpage Layout!

If you logged into your Facebook fan page today you may have come across the message prompting you to switch to the new layout that will be rolled out on March 1st. The new Facebook fan pages looks a lot like your new personal page. I'll let you look at some of the developments for yourself, but I wanted to point out two that are the most interesting to me.


When you are logged into your page you are given the option to "switch" and navigate Facebook as your fan page. Yes, you can post and make comments on OTHER pages as YOUR own page. This new option is really interesting and one that could go a long way to help you build your page's number of "likes." When you are logged in as your page there are even notifications of new "likes" and comments on your fan page, just like on your personal page. The other thing about the new design that I like is that you are able to select the featured pages you liked under your page in the sidebar. You're allowed to select your favorites to be highlighted in your sidebar. This gives you a great place to promote the pages of friends, brands you like or work with you or pages you just find interesting.

Sphere of Influence

I just did a quick study of the Facebook presence for a variety of insurance companies. Clearly the Auto Insurance carriers are way ahead of the Medical & Life insurance carriers.


Number of Fans
Geico – 151,000
Farmers – 129,000
StateFarm – 58,000
AllState – 25,000
Progessive – 21,000
NY Life – 7,000
Metlife – 4,300
Aetna – 710
Genworth – 388
Wellpoint – 358

This is an indication of two things, (1) you’re in trouble if you sell a lot of auto insurance! Direct on-line sales will start to eat at your block (2) What are the medical insurance companies doing? Aetna has millions of insured people and they only have a distribution of 710 people….very odd!

Google vs Facebook

How will Google and Facebook compete? The goal of each is to be the point of entry for Web users, the theory being that whoever controls the gateway will deliver the most effective advertising platform. As I discovered in reporting last week's column, Facebook is so important to some users that it is on their computer screens 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I feel like I'm constantly using Google, but I don't sleep with it.


Exactly how this competition will unfold remains to be seen. Last week, Google co-founder Sergey Brin remarked that what has been done already in Social Search, Google's social-networking feature, is "just the tip of the iceberg" and represents only "one percent of the capabilities that can be deployed in that realm." This is obviously one of the areas he will be targeting in his new role as head of strategic projects

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

What Happened To My Insurance Referrals?

There is nothing like getting a phone call from a referral of a current client. Most of the time it leads to a very efficient and quick insurance sale. Referrals are what most successful insurance agencies are built on, it’s what you crave, and it’s what you work hard for!

I talk to between 500 and 1000 different insurance agencies each month. The common theme in almost every conversation is the phone isn’t ringing like it used to. Agencies are confused why! More importantly their getting very frustrated!

In my opinion referrals aren’t disappearing, there being generated more virtually. When someone needs a plumber today, they aren’t calling up their friends or looking in the yellow pages (that’s too risky). People are posting on social media asking if anyone knows a good one. The response that comes back may be from a few acquaintances or people you hardly know, but if the review of that plumber seems strong, then that person may call that plumber instantly.

My point is for the first time in maybe your insurance agencies history you’re forced to create a little “Buzz” about your agency. You’re forced to really open up to the entire world and show that your creative, your professional and more importantly you’re an expert in your field!

There is a big difference between a lead and a referral. If you want to get that phone ringing again with efficient referral sales you need to start promoting your brand on facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and soon enough Google +!

Facebook Insights

Once a Facebook fanpage has more than 30 followers and regular activity, Facebook automatically engages Insights to start monitoring that page's activity and growth. The page's analytics are only visible to page administrators. And remember there is a significant difference between Facebook profiles, which are for individuals, and Facebook pages, which are for businesses or other organizations.

When Insights becomes available, a small summary box will appear in the left column of the page when an administrator is logged in and viewing the page.

Make sure you utilize this tool to monitor your pages performance!

Facebook Fan Page Tips

(1) Monitor daily at best. Weekly at worst. Set alerts so you know when someone has written on your wall.

(2) Use other online vehicles to recruit Facebook fans including links on your homepage, ads, promotions and other social media sites.

(3) You are only a small reason your fans are on Facebook. Be respectful and don’t over-promote or you risk losing them.

(4) Consider promoting others on your page who have done something significant in your area.

(5) Listen, converse, energize, help, support, or embrace are six things you should ask if your post do.

(6) Thank people for becoming fans.

(7) Ask people to use the “share” button if it’s a particularly important post.

(8) Ask fans what they think about a subject or post, when appropriate.

(9) Promote real-world events. This connects online and offline.

Creating a Custom Web Address For Your Fanpage "Alias"

You need to have "25" fans of your Business Page before Facebook lets you create an alias. This means you can make your web address Facebook.com/BobsInsurance.

Once you have 25 fans
Go to your FanPage
Click Edit Page
Select Marketing
Select Alias
Think about your Alias Name, you cannot change it once its set!!!

Adding A Testimonial Section To Your FB Fanpage

Having a “Reviews” section on your Facebook Fanpage is very important. It allows your satisfied customers to write about how you’ve helped them. More importantly it lets onlookers know that you have a proven track record of success.

How to add a “Reviews” section:
(1) Login into Facebook with the account that manages your Fanpage.
(2) In the top search box type in, “Reviews” and select “Reviews App”
(3) Now in the upper left hand corner of the page that opened select “Add to my page”
(4) Choose the page you want to add it to and it should appear

Top 5 Signs Your Corporate Website Needs an Update

(1) You don’t have links to your Facebook / Linkedin / Blog on the homepage
(2) It has very detailed quote request forms
(3) It has dozens of sub pages
(4) It looks different on various search engines
(5) It has a flash intro that has to upload before it starts

I review literally thousands of insurance agency websites a month. Honestly 90% of them are very poor because they are so broad and massive; they have no game plan or purpose.

Today every insurance professional should have (4) websites. There Facebook Business page for marketing and communication, their LinkedIn page as their bio, their Blog as their news feed and their corporate website that generates leads and on-line sales. Most importantly all (4) need to be attached and synchronized.

Remember the end goal is to get the prospective client to call you! You’re the salesman that should be all you need.

Does Your Website Cost You Referrals

What many insurance agents fail to realize is a website can actually hurt you more than help you. Most people between the ages of 18 and 40 will now do on-line research on any professional they’re referred to. This means your website, Facebook Page, LinkedIn Page, Blog and any other web presence will be judged!


Web Presence Red Flags – Things that scare people away!

Very Old Website Technology – When I go to a website that clearly is over 4 or 5 years old, that tells me that this agency doesn’t like to invest in things. Meaning their either cheap or lazy.

Dead Links on a Website – There is nothing worse than going to a site and clicking on something interesting and getting a “Page Cannot Be Found” error. To me this means this agency doesn’t pay attention to details.

Facebook / LinkedIn “No friends” – When I do a Social Media search on someone and see they have very few connections. Did this agency give it a try for one day then give up? I wonder if they will give up on me when I need help?

No Web Presence At All – The biggest red flag is if the agency has no web presence at all. To the consumer this means the agency is a mystery and to use them would be taking a risk or chance.